The present invention relates to an apparatus for feeding products, such as cards and product samples which are intended to be inserted into or stuck onto printing products, to a further processing point.
An apparatus of this type is disclosed in DE-A-2135303. A stack of products, such as paper bags, plastic bags, tin-foil pockets or postcards, is arranged in a vertical magazine compartment, and then the products are removed individually. For this purpose, the apparatus has a conveying device with a drawing member which is driven in a circulating manner and on which there are arranged one behind the other two applying heads, each of which has a gripping mechanism. The gripping mechanisms serve to remove the products from the magazine compartment and securely hold the products until the applying heads are set onto a printing product onto which the product is to be stuck. This known apparatus is likely to be suitable only for low operating speeds. The products are removed by means of the gripping mechanisms from the bottom of the upright stack. This results in correspondingly great accelerations and on the other hand the forces acting on the products are further increased by the entire weight of the stack resting on the product to be removed. This results in extremely great stressing of the products, in particular if they are product samples filled with liquid.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus of the generic type which, while treating the products gently, ensures uninterrupted operation at high processing speed.